I think that's why I write the way I do, Etoile. In real life, I'm full of angst (as anyone who reads this is aware). I cry a lot. I complain a lot. I'm sensitive. I'm hurt easily. I take things seriously.

This is going to sound like pretentious bullshit (I used to hate that word. I still don't like it much, but the desensitization has obviously begun), but the truth is that in my writing I can be free of that. Not to say that my writing lacks melodramatic angst; certainly it's there in spades, but I try to temper it with humor, with poking fun. I don't have to take everything so seriously, and I can't get hurt or upset because I'm the one in control (or at least, I tell myself this. XD The story really does drag me in all kinds of crazy directions). I think that if my writing were humorless--if they were really that full of sobbing and angst and everything--then I probably wouldn't like it so much. The stories I read in the Rhodes magazine either left me depressed or at least mildly bitter, and all of them--every last one--was realistic fiction. This is also why I don't write entirely realistic fiction, because reality sucks. Reading those stories would strengthen that belief. But I don't want to write about pure fantasy either, at least, that's not my favorite thing. I like twisted reality. Surreality, I guess. Stories that mix the mundane with the fantastic are my favorite to read and my favorite to write, and I really hope I get that across in Claris and Clarity--they're about fantastic things happening in an otherwise mundane world.

(now I will digress)

On the other hand, writing something like that can be cathartic for people, for a lot of people, which is why so much poetry is about broken hearts and suicide and rape and drugs and all that. Poetry is an easy way to let out emotions in a vague and crackfed manner (or, for some people, in an incredibly explicit and sometimes frightening manner). This is why so much of it (including my own) sucks. It's easy, so naturally everyone who wants to call themselves a writer engages in it, because besides being easy it's a release. Easy release. And there's nothing wrong with writing bad poetry. There really isn't. It's when you write poetry that's bad--that you know was written purely for the soothing of your aching heart and that you know no one would care to read but you--it's when you try to take that poetry and give it to someone, and then completely freak out when they don't think you're the next [insert poet you think is really good here, i.e., lord byron, sylvia plath, pablo neruda, maya angelou, lord tennyson, robert frost, anne sexton, etc]--when a problem exists.